LeafSpring Schools are experts in early childhood education and childcare with locations in four US states, including Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, and Indiana. Working with children during some of their most crucial learning years, it’s important that all staff members are onboarded well. That’s why the Preschool Director, Jenna Ward, takes it very seriously. Having worked with LeafSpring Schools for over a decade with experience as a chief program officer for another educational company in China, Jenna is well aware of the lengths administrators should go to in order for new hires of any culture to feel welcome and get them started on the right foot. In this episode of the Employee Onboarding Podcast from Process Street, Jenna discusse:

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June 16, 2023
Tips for Personalized Onboarding to Wow New Hires
process.st/personalized-onboarding
Isabella Busby-Priest
June 16, 2023
Uncategorized
LeafSpring Schools are experts in early childhood education and childcare with locations
in four US states, including Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, and Indiana.
Working with children during some of their most crucial learning years, it’s important that
all staff members are onboarded well. That’s why the Preschool Director, Jenna Ward,
takes it very seriously.
Having worked with LeafSpring Schools for over a decade with experience as a chief
program officer for another educational company in China, Jenna is well aware of the
lengths administrators should go to in order for new hires of any culture to feel welcome
and get them started on the right foot.
In this episode of the Employee Onboarding Podcast from Process Street, Jenna
discusses:
Personalized onboarding
Intentionality in designing the onboarding process
The little things that make employee onboarding better

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You can listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, Podchaser, Podcast Addict, Deezer, & all
your favorite podcast platforms!
Personalized onboarding
Key takeaways:
Don’t rush employee onboarding.
Focus on building relationships as well we teaching the necessary skills.
Mix up the training to accommodate people’s different needs and learning styles.
It helps to partner new hires with other employees to help them feel more
comfortable asking questions.
What would you say are the top three ingredients every great onboarding
process should have?
Jenna Ward
I think one of the things that we really always want to take into account is that it cannot be
rushed, and it cannot be sped through. We’ve had a few staff come to us from other
locations and say, “Oh, you know, I just kind of had a day of onboarding.” And we’re really
big into making sure that people feel truly comfortable, especially since we’re working
with children and so that we’re sending in folks into the classroom that really feel
comfortable in their positions.
Another really important ingredient is that, in addition to teaching the skills that we want
people to have, we’re also helping them build those relationships with their co-workers,
and have kind of a basic understanding of how they can go out and find the resources
they may need, who they should be directing, any kind of questions, too.
And the third one, I’d say, is making sure that the onboarding is mixed. There’s all
different kinds of training. There’s all different kinds of learners, so we try to make sure
that we have some [training] that is in person, some parts that are digital. Some things
they’re reading, some things they’re writing. That way they really get a chance to
experience the training in all different formats.
What would you say is the sweet spot of time that it takes to onboard a
new teacher?
Jenna
We definitely try to make sure they have at least three to four full days of training and time
to take in the information. And then, most importantly, we have those follow-up touch
points to make sure that if any information was missed, or just it’s a lot of information to
take in off the bat, so we have 10-day check-ins with the new staff member. And then we

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also partner them up with a mentor that they meet with every week or two after their initial
onboarding. And that really helps to make sure that they’re reviewing everything that was
covered, and so that there are not things that they feel were missed along the way.
Does that mentor become sort of like their buddy, if you will?
Jenna
Yeah, the mentor kind of becomes the person that they can go to. The great thing about
our administrative team is that we all came from the classroom, and we all have
experiences within the classroom, but there can always be potentially a little bit of a
barrier between the administrative team and the teacher. So the mentor is a fellow
teacher that also has the experience in the background to be able to talk someone
through a challenging situation, to walk them through and guide them through something
that they need help and assistance in.
So it can be another team member, that’s a part of the team that the staff member can
reach out to. But then there are also situations every couple of weeks where the mentor is
pulling that staff member out of the classroom, just to touch base, but also to say, “Here
are some things that you learned in onboarding, let’s go over them and see if you have
any questions now that you’re a few weeks in.”
I know when I first started, I definitely felt a little bit nervous about approaching an
administrator with questions, especially if it was something that I felt was a silly question
at the time. From my point of view, now I can see that there are no silly questions. And
then I’m happy to field any and all any and all concerns someone has, but I think it’s great
to give them that additional touch point person that they can have those bonds with.
Intentionality
Key takeaways:

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Introduce new hires to people in all departments, not just their own.
It’s good to deliver training in-person and online because both have their
advantages.
It’s important for international companies to understand cultural differences and
adjust their onboarding processes to reflect them.
From being a teacher, and also being a chief program officer and a school
director, how has the onboarding changed over time?
Jenna
I think one of the biggest things I’ve seen is that onboarding now is really an all-hands-on-
deck process. As the person is going through our onboarding process, there’s a chance
for them to meet and spend time with pretty much all different people throughout the
school.
So they do their kitchen training, and they get to spend time with the cook and learn a
little bit about the kitchen. They do their training with our nurse and learn a little bit about
allergies and how they can best report and communicate with the nurse. They do a
training with our curriculum specialists, with our assistant director, with our administrative
assistants.
Instead of just having kind of one person deliver all of the training, I think we’ve really
found a way to split it up. So that it’s not as big of a project for any one person to take on
all of the training of new staff. But also, it really helps the new hire to get to know a lot of
different people within the school, which can be really beneficial long term.
You mentioned earlier about digitizing some of your training. How has
that evolved over time?
We use a company called LearningZen right now, and that is who some of our online
training is through. So although we really do think it is critically important to have that face
time with staff, we do have some pre-made training that is created and used for the
teachers in that way. And that’s also helpful because it’s something that they can go back
and reference and watch again, if they have any further questions.
And how do you make the process efficient for individuals? Is there any
level of personalization to this?
Jenna
Yeah, I think we definitely want to make sure it is dependent upon the specific person’s
position. Obviously, if they are training for something like an administrative role, or a
specific role within the building, there are different kinds of training that are presented,
and they spend more or less time with other fellow co-workers in the building.

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It’s also really important that we make sure to make each individual person feel welcome
and feel like they’re a part of the team. So we really try to get to know them and get to
know what works best for them and adapt what works best for them. If they are someone
that needs a little bit more time experiencing what it is we’re talking about, and a little
more time in the classroom to ask those questions in order to feel comfortable, then we’ll
adjust our training to make sure that happens.
And I would imagine that onboarding teachers in the United States and
onboarding teachers in China is probably different. Would you say it’s
different? If so, how?
Jenna
When we were doing the onboarding in China, we really had to come up with a whole
new system of onboarding. And we had to make sure that everything was bilingual. So
that was step one. We were hiring American lead teachers and Chinese teacher
assistants, so we needed it in both languages.
But we also really had to include a very important cultural component. After the first year
or so, we realized that when we are working with a company that has both American and
Chinese ties, we have to make sure that we are recognizing the big difference that exists
between those two cultures. So we would incorporate it into our onboarding process
training about how American people, in general, view things in a business setting versus
how Chinese people view things in a business setting. And make sure that everyone is
coming at it from a good point of view.
We also spent a lot more time training on things that people that grew up here in America
might already have a bit of background on, like positive discipline and play-based
learning. So there’s a lot more time kind of explaining the why behind those things.
You quickly learn, in any training process, that you need to be ready to answer the
questions your customers have. And one of the big questions our customers had over in
China was, “What do you mean they’re learning? They’re sitting there playing with a box
of blocks. How does that mean learning?” So we needed to make sure that it wasn’t just
our administrators that understood the purpose behind it, but that everyone had buy-in
into why, in general, we have a different way of learning in America.
The little things make employee onboarding better
Key takeaways:
It’s a shame that there aren’t even more ways to personalize the onboarding
process.
LeafSpring Schools take the time to learn about their new hires and give each of
them a personalized gift at the end of onboarding to help them feel appreciated.
They take the time to learn about each new hire’s culture and try to adjust the
training process to fit their needs.

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If you could wave your magic wand and change anything about an
onboarding process, what would you change about it?
Jenna
I would love to make it so that it could more easily be adapted to every individual person.
I think it is challenging when you’re bringing in someone new, you can ask the questions
that you want to ask and try to get to know them a little bit, but it’s not usually until
afterward that you’ve spent enough time with them to know how they learn best and what
works best for them. So I would love the ability to maybe have a little more time ahead of
time, before starting the onboarding process, to get to know everybody so that we could
adapt training to better fit a way that they will more fully comprehend and absorb all the
information.
What is the most creative thing a company can do to create that wow
moment for a new hire to give them that feeling that they made the right
choice?
Jenna
I think a really huge thing is always making that personal connection. I think I’ve seen
from watching my predecessors do training, that they’re always looking to share a little bit
about themselves and get to know a little bit about the new staff member. And then also
make sure that the new staff member knows that we care about them.
One of the things that we do is early on in the training process, we have everyone fill out
a getting-to-know-you form that has a little bit of background about them and a little bit of
information about their favorite things. We put that on our website so that when holidays
come around, or Teacher Appreciation Week, families can access that if they’re interested
in getting a little gift for their teacher.
But also, at the end of each onboarding process, we go out and get the staff member a
few things from their favorite things list, whether it’s their favorite candy bar and their
favorite soda, maybe their favorite bagel, or something like that. And then we always
make sure we’re giving it to them in a gift bag that’s their favorite color, along with some
shirts for the school. So I think it really it’s about the little things that make a big
difference, the little things, of letting someone know that you heard them, that you listen to
them, and that you’re excited that this person is a part of your team, and you’re happy to
welcome them.
I think you really have to [pay attention to the little details]. We’ve had people join our
team from all different backgrounds. We’ve had teachers come on recently, a few that
have English as a second language and, and it’s really important to take the time to not
just learn a little bit about them, but a little bit about their culture and how they best learn

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things, making sure all the information is being communicated correctly. So I think we’re
always kind of striving to make sure that we are presenting ourselves in the best possible
way for all new staff coming in.
Listen to The Employee Onboarding Podcast on your favorite
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What do you think about Jenna Ward’s approach to personalized onboarding? Do you
make your onboarding as individualized as possible? Tell us about it in the comments!
Isabella Busby-Priest
Isabella Busby-Priest is a content writer with a keen interest in all things environment,
nature, travel, and culture. When she's not creating new blog content, you'll often find her
reading in odd places or planning a trip to a new country.
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